


Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?

by shireness



Series: Rock Star!Emma AU - Maybe I Won't Die Alone [6]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 06:44:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16057685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shireness/pseuds/shireness
Summary: Emma's written for as long as she's had words in her head, but some songs she holds closer than others. When you've left a bit of your soul on the page, it's hard to let anyone in to read them.





	Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T for language.
> 
> Another snippet in my Rockstar!Emma AU verse - definitely go read those first. This particular piece spiraled out from a passing reference in the original to Killian finding a box of piano ballads when he helps Emma move. 
> 
> I listen to a LOT of Ingrid Michaelson music when writing this verse, and a lot of those lyrics have found their way into this fic. I obviously own nothing - I just get Emma feelings listening. The title is pulled from "Breakable"; lyrics in this fic pulled from (in order of appearance, and one song per section): "Men of Snow", "Sort of" "Are We There Yet", "The Chain", and "Overboard".
> 
> Enjoy!

Emma’s written for as long as she’s had words in her head.

She doesn’t have any grand intended purpose for them, no dreams of becoming an author or a poet or whatever else one does with their words, but they’re _there_ and they’re _hers_ and true ownership of anything is hard to come by in the childhood she’s living. They morph from poetic phrases and fragments of stories to songs in middle school when a particularly kind music teacher instructs Emma in the basics of piano during study hall, and Emma finally has the format to match all those bits and pieces of language running through her head.

She’s not even particularly organized about it in those early days, pouring out her feelings onto tiny scraps of paper and the edges of notebook pages and napkins and whatever else is on hand when she needs an outlet, needs to turn all her feelings into verse before they eat her alive. Given enough time, all those scraps - well, at least the ones she saves, the ones she’s actually satisfied with for their own merit instead of as cathartic release - form a layer of creative detritus at the bottom of her backpack as she’s shuffled from family to group home and back again.

Ruth Nolan is something else, however, something Emma can recognize even at 15. Ruth seems to see everything, eyes almost too kind and understanding to be real. It shouldn’t really surprise Emma that her latest foster mother - a woman trying to live up to that title in more than just name - sees her little hobby, if you could call it that, as well.

_One day you will go away…_

The older woman shows up with a notebook and a hatbox, the latter carrying that particular smell Emma associates with the antique stores Ruth likes so much.

“I thought you might like someplace you could keep all your pieces together,” Ruth says in that tone of voice Emma’s learning means she’s afraid she’s overstepping Emma’s boundaries. “Only if you want, of course. And then a pretty notebook too, for your writing or journaling or just school, if you prefer. What girl doesn’t need a pretty notebook?”

Emma’s wary to accept the gift - gifts are easy to take back when she’s inevitably sent back, so there’s no sense in getting attached - but she thinks Ruth might mean it genuinely. “Thanks,” she says, attempting a smile. “That’s a good idea.” Even if she’s hesitant to accept the gift, Ruth’s too _good_ to hurt her feelings, so Emma makes the effort all the same.

“Oh, it’s nothing, my girl,” Ruth excuses, cheeks pinking as she busily fusses with the pillows on Emma’s bed, almost like she didn’t expect even that small praise. After a few moments, she seems to run out of things to do in that direction, straightening with a sigh to meet Emma’s hesitant smile. “You’ll let me know if you need anything else, sweetie?”

It strikes Emma for the first time that Ruth may be just as nervous about this working out as she is, but is trying so hard all the same to make Emma feel like a part of something. “Yeah, I will,” she reassures, before taking it a brave step further. “I thought maybe I’d come down in a few, if you or David wanted to play a card game or something?”

“I’d love that,” Ruth beams, sending a little shoot of happiness and pride through Emma that _she_ was able to do that. “No rush, sweetheart, you come down whenever you’re ready,” she assures on her way out.

_Just one more line_ , Emma thinks, quickly finishing out her thought before putting her pen aside to join the Nolans downstairs.

It takes months and months, but Emma figures out that Ruth Nolan is a no-backsies kind of woman, both with her gifts and her love. The adoption papers are certainly proof of that sentiment, though Emma has moved all her snippets into the hatbox even before everything’s official. She’s finally found a place of her own in this world - it’s time her words do too.

———

_My love’s too big for you my love…_

The words are a release, a way to express everything she’s feeling when faced with her first real heartbreak at the hands of her cheating ex-boyfriend. They’re never meant to be seen by anyone - hell, Emma’s not sure that she herself wants to read them a second time, bear witness to that pure expression of pain again. Yes, she’s fucking pissed at Neal, and no, she doesn’t want to rekindle things or remotely regret their breakup after finding him in bed with another woman, but she _loved_ him, in that awful, consuming, first-love kind of way. And that doesn’t go away instantly, even despite her anger, even when given the ample evidence that it _should._ Writing it all down, Emma’s long since learned, is the first step in processing and moving forward.

_Tell me what to do to take away the you…_

What she doesn’t plan on, however, is Belle spotting the words where Emma’s left them on her dorm room’s desk when the brunette swings by with an impromptu question about their creative writing assignment. It’s far too late to hide them - the time for that was before Belle knocked, honestly, and any efforts now will just make it look like Emma has something interesting to hide. Even if Belle is a sweet girl, one that Emma doesn’t think would pry if she just snatched the page back, there’s no closing the barn door after the horse has already escaped.

“Is this for class?” Belle asks, understandably confused. It’s fairly obviously not a school assignment, since they haven’t been asked to complete anything in verse.

“No, it’s… a personal project, I guess,” Emma half-heartedly explains. “Just a hobby.”

Belle raises her eyebrows at that. “It’s really good. Is it a song?”

“Could be,” Emma shrugs. “I mean, I kind of wrote it like that, but I’ve never actually sat down and figured out the music that goes with it, so…”

“Still, it’s impressive,” Belle comments. “I’d go see a band who was putting out stuff like this.”

“Thanks,” Emma mumbles, feeling her cheeks start to flush pink.

“Thanks for not snatching it out of my hand immediately,” Belle grins. “Do you have any others you’d be willing to share?”

Looking back, Emma thinks the band was born that night - or at least the idea for one. Either way, before the year is out, they’re practicing with two other acquaintances-turned-bandmates in university practice rooms, trying to put together sounds and words that people will actually want to listen to.

(The hatbox remains sealed, however; certain things are just too private to put in front of the world.)

_———_

_They say that home is where the heart is_

_I guess I haven’t found my home…_

She probably should have figured Killian would find the hatbox when she asked him to help her unpack the boxes in the office - a task she’s been putting off for an almost embarrassingly long time. If there’s one thing she’s learned, it’s that Killian Jones is meticulous in everything he does, and helping Emma unpack her belongings and god-awful stacks of files is no exception.

“What’re these, then?” he teases, flashing Emma that grin that he thinks is charming (and Emma sometimes allows herself to find charming as well).

“Oh, you know. Just some stuff I’ve written,” she says, as vaguely as possible. It’s not that she wants to hide this box from him, or that she cares that he’s found all her scraps of songs, but there’s a lot of memories in that box, years of the feelings she hides so well behind her public facade, and they honestly don’t have the time to go through it all. Jury’s still out on whether Emma has the inclination to do so in the first place.

“I don’t recognize these,” he says, frowning in confusion as he scans the messy scrawl dancing across the pages. “Are they from the next album?” His face suddenly lights up with an excitement more characteristic of a young boy, not a grown-ass adult whose best friend will _gladly_ give him a sneak peak of the drafts for the next album if he ever _asks_.

“No, God no,” she snorts. “Those will never see the light of day.”

“Whyever not?” he asks. The defensive part of Emma reads it as a demand, but her logic and ears at least are able to process his tone as actually pretty polite, though curious. “These are really good.”

Emma shrugs. “Not really our style. Those are meant to be just the piano and maybe an acoustic guitar.” They’re excuses, she realizes, and though Killian seems to be happy enough to take them at face value, Emma feels a twinge of guilt about not giving him more. He’s her best friend, after all; their trust is an implicit thing, strong in the knowledge that they’ll never judge one another. With that in mind, Emma scratches out a small hole in her walls to hand him more. “They’re… personal,” she elaborates, though that was probably already obvious. “I mean, those in the box were my emotional outlet for a while. They’re just too… close, if that makes sense? I don’t really want to share them with everyone.”

Killian drops the slips back into the box quickly, hastening to seal everything back up. “I’m sorry, love, I didn’t mean to pry,” he apologizes.

He really doesn’t need to. “Killian, it’s fine,” she smiles. “You’re not ‘everyone’. Or whatever. Something less corny.”

“Too late, Swan,” he replies, that smug look trying to creep across his face. “I’ll treasure those words forever.”

Emma rolls her eyes at him, but truthfully, she doesn’t particularly mind. She may have been hesitant to show Killian that little bit of herself, but it ultimately wasn’t nearly as hard or painful as she feared. Then again, things with Killian have always been easy - easy and comfortable.

She can’t help but think that maybe, now that they both live in the same city, they can finally explore that _something_ that’s always been simmering just below the surface of their friendship.

_They say you’re really not somebody_

_Until somebody else loves you_

_Well I am waiting to make somebody somebody soon…_

_———_

Emma Swan isn’t, historically, a wallower, but it was a fucking stupid fight, and looking back, she’s entirely to blame. Or, at the very least, she can’t blame Killian for being frustrated - “her fault” makes it sound like she was out looking for an argument. But at the very least, she sees and understands why he was upset in the first place.

It’s so _stupid_ in retrospect, the events that led to their fight. They’d run into an acquaintance of Emma’s, one of the sound techs that’s working with them on the next album, and it fell to Emma to make introductions - and she’d fumbled. Badly. To the tune of “This is my… this is Killian.” And yes, they were walking down the street with arms thrown around each other, and the techie totally knew that they were together, but still. Not a good thing that Emma’s still too screwed up to even call Killian her boyfriend.

“Don’t you think that hurts, Emma?” he asks later, _begs_ later after she demands to know why he’s being so quiet. “We’ve been together for three and a half months, and I know you’re committed to this relationship - at least when it’s just us - but it’s like a little knife to the heart when you can’t or won’t let others in on that little secret, like this is something to be ashamed of.” He runs a hand over his face in frustration, before shaking his head and turning towards the door of her apartment. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do this tonight. I’ll call you later.” His hand is on the knob when he turns back for the last word. “Think about what you really want from this, Emma, because I won’t drag you into something you’re not 100% on board with.”

And then he leaves Emma to sort out the pain currently coursing through her chest.

_I’ll never say that I’ll never love_

_But I don’t say a lot of things_

_(and you my love are gone)_

Emma knows that she can’t fix herself overnight, can’t suddenly push past all the emotional scarring that’s caused all this blasted hesitance. But what she can do is try harder to show Killian how she feels, even if she can’t say the words yet.

With that in mind, she sits down to write another song, one whose words have just started popping into her head. The Lost Girls are planning to do a short surprise set at the Jolly Roger three weeks from now - maybe this can be added to the set list, this song just for Killian.

_———_

_It’ll take more than just a breeze to make me…_

_Fall overboard just so you can catch me_

“Writing me another love song, Swan?” Killian asks cheekily from where he leans in the doorway.

“You say that like you’ve been deprived,” Emma dryly shoots back. “And I know for a fact that’s not true.”

“Ah, well, a man can dream,” he teases, crossing the room to embrace Emma from behind, chin coming to rest on her head. “In all seriousness, what are you working on there?”

“Something for Ruby.”

Killian snorts at that pronouncement. “Oh, that seems premature. We just introduced her to Graham a few weeks ago, love.”

“Yeah, but I’ve got a feeling,” Emma insists. “They really hit it off the other week, and they both seemed smitten.”

“Are you sure you’re alright, Emma? Or is this some kind of body swap with your sister-in-law?” her husband teases, jokingly feeling her forehead for a fever. “Quick, tell me something only Emma would know!”

“Very funny,” Emma deadpans. “Just you wait, I’ll be singing this at their reception one day.”

“Whatever you say, my love,” he placates, dropping a kiss to the crown of her head before tilting his own in curiosity. “I don’t think I’ve seen the hatbox in a good long while,” he observes.

“Haven’t needed it lately,” she shoots right back. “What can I say, I’m becoming more emotionally healthy, or something.” It’s a quip, for certain, but there’s a certain amount of truth to it; Emma hasn’t had to turn to the hatbox and pouring her emotions out into words no one will ever read because she has Killian instead, who’s always there to listen when she’s sad or frustrated. She likes to think she offers him the same in return.

“I don’t think you were ever so bad as you make it sound,” Killian says, trying to temper her words, “but I’m glad to hear that you don’t need to depend on that outlet so much anymore.”

“Only because of you, babe,” Emma replies cheekily, meaning every word despite her teasing tone.

Killian snorts a laugh all the same, before craning around to drop a smacking kiss on her lips. “You’ll have to write me a song to prove it!” he calls over his shoulder as he wanders back out into the living room.

And who knows? Maybe she just might.

_And I never thought I’d be the type to fall, to fall…_

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! I always love writing in this verse.
> 
> Super thanks to @snidgetsafan, my exceptional beta. You're the best, darling, especially for editing this on such short notice!
> 
> Also posted on tumblr - I'm @shireness-says. Come make friends.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
